As in the Pays de Gex, there is a shortage of teachers in Haute-Savoie, especially in the border area. “Geographically, the Annemasse basin and the Genevois Haut-Savoyard are the areas which require the most attention from our services, due to their proximity to Switzerland,” confirms the Grenoble rectorate.
The academy does not provide any figures at the departmental or local level. But the entire department is affected, both in middle and high school. Two very recent examples in the Annecy basin show this. Just before the Christmas holidays, teachers and parents of students from the Charles-Baudelaire high school in Annecy demonstrated to warn of the lack of teachers, particularly in French and philosophy in classes preparing for the baccalaureate. In Saint-Jorioz, the principal of the Jean-Monnet college has just launched an appeal to parents to find a replacement English teacher for six classes.
Contract workers are hard to find
The rectorate specifies that the discipline most in tension is economics-management (subject taught in high school), but that the shortage also affects modern literature, maths, English and physics-chemistry. Missing civil servants, either because they are absent (sick leave, maternity leave), or because their positions are not filled due to lack of candidates, are replaced by contract workers. Nationally, they represent 10% of middle and high school teachers.
You just need to go to the France Travail website in Haute-Savoie to realize to what extent these teachers who do not hold a competitive examination have become essential.
In the public as in the private sector under contract, job offers are plentiful: in French, German, Spanish, English, maths, eco-management etc. We are looking for teachers in Seyssel, Rumilly, Annecy, Sallanches, Passy, Saint-Julien, Annemasse, Gaillard, Cranves-Sales, Reignier…
But even this pool is difficult to find, especially when it comes to part-timers. “The recruitment difficulty is mainly due to low service times, 4 hours, 6 hours and sometimes 9 hours” confirms the rectorate.
Around ten unfilled positions in the Pays de Gex
At the start of the September 2024 school year, 16 teachers were missing from middle and high schools in Pays de Gex. Four months after the start of the school year, these figures have fallen, but the SNES-FSU teaching union estimates that many teachers compensate by taking overtime. Likewise, courses are taught remotely, by video. What the unions regret, especially for middle school students who need this teacher-student relationship even more. At the beginning of January, the unions counted 9 unfilled positions: 5 at the Cité scolaire international de Ferney (1 French and 1 PE at the high school; 2 French and 1 music at the middle school), 1 at the Péron middle school (English), 2 at the middle school in Saint-Genis-Pouilly (techno and French), at Ornex college (French) and a few hours in musical education at Divonne college.
